A group of extreme leftists is planning to hold an alternative
Memorial Day ceremony this coming Wednesday, when Israelis remember
the fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism.

The ceremony is being held by an organization called ‘Combatants for
Peace’, with the main difference between its ceremony and the central
Memorial Day ceremonies being that the organization includes Israeli
bereaved parents and Palestinian Authority Arab bereaved parents
(that is, parents of terrorists who were killed while fighting IDF
soldiers) under the same category of remembrance and loss.

The alternative ceremony has been held for the past seven years and
this year, for the second year in a row, a group of Israeli youth is
planning to show up and protest the inclusion of Arabs.

Nissim Eliyahu from Herzliya, one of the organizers of the protest
against the ceremony, told Arutz Sheva on Sunday that the ceremony is
in fact a political event under the guise of a memorial event.

“They call the terrorists fighters and hold a joint ceremony,” said
Eliyahu, emphasizing that if the organizers had expressed their wish
to commemorate the deaths of innocent Arabs who died during battles,
he would understand this even if he does not agree with it, but noted
that “unfortunately this is not the case.”

Eliyahu said he approached ‘Combatants for Peace’ and asked them for
clarification on this issue, but was ignored. However, he noted, the
advertisement for the ceremony says that it is also meant for
families of “Palestinian combatants.”

“Last year a group of about thirty people came to their ceremony with
protest signs and called out against the degradation of Israel’s
fallen,” said Eliyahu, adding that quite a few bereaved families who
arrived at the ceremony without knowing its true nature beforehand,
turned around and left when they realized the truth.

Eliyahu said that during the ceremony, there were references to the
intifada and to the Nakba, the ‘catastrophe’ of the establishment of
the State of Israel.